But if you read some of the comments on the food blog I manage, you’d think the opposite. “Did you omit the nutrition info because it was too horrible to print?” “I can’t believe this recipe calls for a whole stick of butter!” “A cup of heavy cream? Are you insane?”

I feel like someone, somewhere, must have already come up with a clever term for this—a condition in which one must trumpet one’s own dietary perfection and demean any suggestion that occasional indulgences are acceptable.

Whatever you want to call it, this upsets me.

If eating healthy food all the time makes you happy, that’s fine. These kinds of people will read a recipe, and if it doesn’t appeal to them, they’ll move on.

Those who are critical of what other people might enjoy are a different breed. If you feel the need to tear down less-than-healthy foods and the people who love them, it’s apparent that you’re unhappy, somehow.

Maybe you miss the butter or the heavy cream you’ve cut out of your diet. Maybe you’re frustrated because you’re trying to lose weight and don’t want to see the tasty treats other people are eating. Maybe you’re just plain hungry.

Regardless, this holier-than-thou mindset sucks. What a person eats or doesn’t eat is a personal choice. Few comments in my life have irritated me more than when other people have negatively remarked on my meals. (Exhibit A.) It implies that I’m ignorant to the tenets of healthy eating, that I somehow missed the memo that vegetables are good and foods laden with salt, fat, and/or sugar are bad.

I know these things. Much of the time, I eat healthy foods. When I choose to eat an unhealthy food, I enjoy the hell out of it.